


Retcon

by Zinnamom



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Retcon (Torchwood)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:56:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4870879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zinnamom/pseuds/Zinnamom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto muses about retcon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retcon

**Author's Note:**

> The fic is not beta’d and English is still not my mother tongue, so if you see any typo’s please let me know. And feedback is very much appreciated.

Ianto stared at the bottle in front of him, there were only 3 pills left.

This afternoon the bottle had still been full. It had been a messy affaire, lots of witnesses. Lots of people who were now missing a small fraction of their memories. 

Memories that would never return, Ianto had made sure of that. Once he retconned someone they never remembered. He was good at his job. 

He was so good that it scared him sometimes. 

Before he’d joined Torchwood Three Suzie had mostly done the retcon, on some occasions the erased memories had come back.  
Jack had told him it just happened sometimes, nothing to be done about it, the technique wasn’t perfect after all.  
When Ianto joined, they made him clean up these messes; it was after all in his job description ‘clean up after the team’. Suzie had told him the first time that a second dose of retcon was often less effective. If they’d been able to shake of the effects once, chances were that they’d do it again but he was always welcome to try. 

And Ianto had tried, the first couple of people hadn’t remembered, the second neither. After the third successful cleanup Jack had given him full responsibility for all things retcon. 

That had been over a year ago, and still no one Ianto had retconned remembered a thing afterwards, not even when they bumped into Torchwood again and frankly that fact scared him. The realisation that he could make anyone forget anything he wanted, even himself. 

That was what he was most afraid of. He couldn’t just make others forget, he could make himself forget. He had no way of knowing whether he’d done it before either because if he had he would have erased any and every possible piece of evidence. He would have made sure that there were no blank spots in his memory or any inconsistencies between his memory and that of others, using a cover story that was more probable than reality itself. 

After Lisa he had often considered just retconning everything away, the only thing that had stopped him was the fact that he’d have had to retcon the rest of the team as well and even though he’d despised Jack with every fibre of his being at that time, it had still felt wrong to involve all of them in his misery. But what if at a point in time something equally painful had happened but with less obstacles? He thought about the battle of Canary Wharf and knew that it was very well possible.

He reached for the bottle and held it close to his face, turning the bottle so that he could see the three remaining pills roll around. 

He was in charge of the supplies, noting who used what and what it was used for, making sure to ordered new things when stock was becoming short, he was always the one who knew how much they had of everything. No one would ever notice one missing retcon pill… Ianto laughed, it was ridiculous how easy it would be.  
He shook his head and put the bottle back where it belonged. No point in dwelling on it, there was no way to find out, he’d just had to make peace with that.

“Ianto ,what are you still doing here?” Jack asked as Ianto walked back in the main Hub.

“Just finishing up sir, I’ll be going now.” Ianto said, he picked up his jacket and headed outside.


End file.
